As family plans and pre-paid communication services (particularly with cellular phone service along with additional services) become increasingly popular, better control in managing budgets and accounts will be needed. Parents may wish to have continuous access to their children or other dependents, which can be accomplished by having subscription-based wireless service. However, parents or those paying the overall bill may wish to limit dependent spending on non-essential services, such as downloading games, music, or other media presentations that are currently available or will be available in the future, particularly with the advances in technology and bandwidth. Today, there is no combination of subscription services and prepay services nor any means of controlling payment of such combination of services. For example, cellular phone service can typically be purchased on a subscription basis or separately with a prepaid plan that can be replenished in several ways. In another context for example, Blockbuster Video provides a prepay game rental card. However, this service is not used in conjunction with any subscription based services.